The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) coordinates the planning and development of a safe, viable, and balanced state transportation system serving all regions of the state. To measure, capture, and report information about travel ways, FDOT utilizes the Roadway Characteristics Inventory (RCI) system.
A variety of stakeholders use the RCI system, with many FDOT divisions and program areas depending on its data. External users include other State agencies, the general public, local governments, engineers, mapping companies, law enforcement agencies, the legal profession, universities, realtors, developers, theme park operators, the media, emergency medical service providers, and the construction industry.
What is the purpose of RCI data?
The primary purpose of RCI data is to plan, design, and analyze Florida’s highway system. Other uses include Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reporting, disbursement of funds, creating maintenance budgets, and developing straight-line diagrams, as well as providing input to crash analyses statewide. The accuracy and timeliness of RCI data is important to the safety of millions of Floridians, as well as the success of the state’s roadway development, construction, and repair.
How did ISF help?
FDOT commissioned ISF to work with RCI’s primary stakeholders in defining the user and data requirements for a new solution. The new RCI system will contain the roadway and rail data that is in the existing system, as well as new roadway information and data related to intermodals: aviation, ports, freight, and additional rail.
The project team conducted Joint Application Requirements (JAR) sessions, work sessions in which groups of RCI users discussed their processes and the related data, interviewed FDOT Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and executives, and researched industry standards, best practices, and available technologies. These activities produced analysis used as input to draft user and data requirements. The ISF project team conducted several requirements sessions with FDOT and incorporated the resulting feedback to final requirements documentation.
The resulting project met FDOT goals to involve the appropriate stakeholders in the analysis of their current business processes, explore possible reengineering of those business processes, and ultimately gather the requirements for solutions to meet the business needs. Our work also produced a User Requirements document and a Data Requirements document that accurately, completely, and unambiguously reflect those business and functional requirements.
The requirements analysis methodology resulted in the emergence of several common, high-level themes that shaped ISF’s recommendations addressing future phases of the RCI application replacement. The recommendations are the result of consolidated and analyzed information gathered during a variety of discovery efforts. They emerged from the executive-level vision interviews, JAR sessions, follow-up interviews, and review of industry trends, standards, and best practices that FDOT staff and ISF project resources engaged in during the project.